The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a measure of the economic performance of a country. It is the total value of all goods and services produced within a country in a given year. The GDP of a country is an important indicator of its economic health and is used to compare the economic performance of different countries. The GDP can be calculated in two ways: nominal GDP and real GDP. Nominal GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in a country at current market prices, while real GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in a country adjusted for inflation.
According to the World Bank, the nominal world GDP in 2017 was $80,683.79 billion. In 2018, the nominal world GDP was $84,835.46 billion and it is projected to be $88,081.13 billion in 2019. The growth rate for the world GDP in 2018 was 3.6% .
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) provides estimates of the nominal GDP of countries. According to the IMF, the largest economies in the world by nominal GDP in 2023 are the United States, China, Japan, and Germany . The United States has a nominal GDP of $25.463 trillion, while China has a nominal GDP of $17.963 trillion . The rankings of national economies over time have changed considerably. The United States surpassed the British Empire’s output around 1916, which in turn had surpassed the Qing dynasty in aggregate output decades earlier . Since China’s transition to a socialist market economy through controlled privatization and deregulation, the country has seen its ranking increase from ninth in 1978 to second in 2010. China’s economic growth accelerated during this period and its share of global nominal GDP surged from 2% in 1980 to 18% in 2021 .
The nominal GDP of a country does not take into account differences in the cost of living in different countries. Therefore, comparisons of national wealth are also frequently made on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP), to adjust for differences in the cost of living in different countries. The PPP per capita figures are less spread than nominal GDP per capita